


Mahariel Drabbles

by AFTanith



Series: Lyna Mahariel [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Community: dailyprompt, Dalish Origin, Drabble Collection, F/M, Grey Wardens, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-08-14 01:54:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7994332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AFTanith/pseuds/AFTanith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of various drabbles and ficlets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a new family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Prompt for 2016-01-30](http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/646828.html)

She has a new clan now, a new family. These Wardens are hers as surely as the People are, and she loves them just the same. Zevran and Anders, Nathaniel and Velanna, Oghren and Sigrun, even Justice and Stroud, are all hers now, and she'd die for them just as she would have died for Tamlen or Merrill. She only wishes she could've kept everyone she learned to love during the Blight; Wynne and Shale, Morrigan and Alistair, and Leliana and Sten. But they aren't tied to the Blight, and she is; so it's her job to keep them safe.


	2. how do I forget

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Prompt for 2016-02-19](http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/651049.html)

Tamlen should have been buried, but instead he has been burned. He should have lived a long life, perhaps a century, but instead he's dead at barely twenty, a slave to the Darkspawn and the song of the Archdemon. He should have been Lyna's, her lover, her vhenan, the father of her children; instead, they are tainted, she is barren, and he is dead. She is, instead, in the arms of a flat-ear assassin, a man sold as a slave in a far-off land who tried to be Dalish and didn't belong. And she'll never forget the life she lost.


	3. I don't remember how I got here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Prompt for 2016-04-01](http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/660445.html)

"Tamlen," Lyna whispers, and her lover pauses with a look of concern. "How did we get here?"

He smiles at her, the same sweet expression she remembers, but there's something unfamiliar behind his eyes. "Relax, Lyna," he tells her softly. "The clan doesn't need us right now. No one will bother us here."

It isn't what she asked, but she doesn't need the answer. Clarity is seeping in through the fog, and it's bringing with it memories of stone towers and twisted flesh and the screams of dying mages.

This isn't Tamlen, but she doesn't want to let him go.


	4. embarking on an odyssey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Prompt for 2016-04-11](http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/662696.html)

A Dalish elf, an almost-Templar, a Witch of the Wilds, and a sentient dog. Thanks to Loghain, they are all that stands between Ferelden and the Blight, and Lyna has no idea how she's supposed to do everything she's been tasked with. Getting the Dalish--her own People--on her side will be hard enough, but it seems she will also have to deal with shemlen lords, templars and mages, and even Dwarven kings, and she has no idea how she's supposed to do any of it.

But they can't stay in the Korcari Wilds forever, so Lyna leads on.


	5. last words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Prompt for 2015-12-16](http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/636676.html)

"In truth, for the chance to be by your side, I would storm the Dark City itself. Never doubt it."

If Lyna dies up there, she fully intends to die knowing that those were the last words Zevran said to her before she left. They're more than she could have ever hoped for, an expression of devotion beyond what she fears she deserves, even if she feels just the same about him herself.

But they're not actually the last words he said to her, no matter how much she wishes they had been.

"Cruel to the end."

Perhaps she was.


	6. starting a new life in a new place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Prompt for 2016-01-22](http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/644706.html)

Lyna has been named Warden-Commander.

She walks along the road to Amaranthine and can't help but contemplate the irony. She's starting a new life in a new place, and all still rather unbelievable to her. She's a warden now, of course; yet there's a certain strangeness to the thought of a Dalish elf ruling over a castle and its lands.

But it's a brave new world out there, a world where the Dalish finally have a home at Ostagar, and she has a home in a castle in the north. She wonders what Tamlen would have to say about that.


	7. I was wrong about you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Prompt for 2016-04-27](http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/666222.html)

"I was wrong about you."

The words shouldn't mean so much to her. Lyna never thought she'd be the kind of person who cared what a shemlen man--a near-stranger--thought about her. And yet hearing Nathaniel choose her over the father who conspired to have her killed means more than she could ever have imagined.

There's something interesting, there. Perhaps she craves approval more than she realized. She'd taken a certain pride, after all, in knowing that even Loghain had deemed her a worthy opponent before he'd died.

And it's always been her friends' esteem that gave her strength.


	8. justice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Prompt for 2016-04-26](http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/666057.html)

Everyone is still looking at her with those skeptical little expressions, like they can't understand what in the world is going through her head or why she would ever let a man like Nathaniel Howe get away with what he tried.

But she's not stupid. She could have killed him, sure, but what would have been the point? It wouldn't have been justice; it would've been cruel, petty revenge, no better than what he'd tried to do to her.

He'd wanted her dead, that much was certain (he was perfectly open and seemingly _proud_ of it, in fact) and perhaps he would even try again. Maybe he'd actually get lucky next time; perhaps tomorrow morning would see her dead. But she isn't going to put a man to death for breaking into his family home or reclaiming possessions that had been all but stolen from him, and she suspects that in the end, his so-called assassination attempt had been anything but.

She doesn't even really blame him for it, and she's not about to condemn a man to death or conscription for trying to take back everything he'd lost.

Creators know she'd like to take a few things back, herself.


	9. when falling apart is not an option

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Prompt for 2016-04-06](http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/661333.html)

Mhairi is dead on the floor--just like Daveth, just like Jory--and Lyna wants to scream. But falling apart right now isn't an option. It might not be an option ever again; she's the Warden-Commander now, and this is only the first in a long line of recruits she'll kill just by handing over this accursed goblet, and she will have to be ice and stone in the face of each and every one of them. Even right now, there are already two more prospects waiting for their turn, one of whom is one of the dearest friends she ever had, and she knows she won't ever forgive herself if Oghren dies of this.

She just thanks the Creators that Zevran hasn't been so foolish as to request the Joining yet--and she prays he never will.


	10. a dangerous ritual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Prompt for 2016-01-01](http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/640767.html)

"You have to be sure that this is what you want," she tells him, but she can already see from the look in his eyes that there isn't a thing in the world she can say to discourage him. Not anymore. "The Joining can be fatal. In the past year and a half, the Wardens have lost three recruits this way. And considering we've only had seven, those aren't the best odds in the world. Are you sure, Nathaniel, that this is what you want?"

"Absolutely," he says, eyes burning, and Lyna reluctantly hands him the goblet. He drinks deep.


	11. justice (again)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Prompt for 2016-04-26](http://dailyprompt.dreamwidth.org/666057.html)

Corpses are a inescapable part of her life now, no matter what she would prefer. Such is the life of a warden; she kills the darkspawn, sees their victims, mercifully ends the lives of those already touched by the taint, and lets the Joining devour her recruits. So that a corpse is now one of her... well, perhaps not one of her _friends_ but certainly one of her Wardens--one of her clan--is strange.

Justice is an enigma, as strange and unfathomable to her as they are to him, but she'll protect him just the same as everyone else.

**Author's Note:**

> [Prompt me.](http://refusedbythecall.tumblr.com/submit)


End file.
